Galaxies and Goddesses: A Sci-Fi & Fantasy Bookcast

The Dispossessed
Andrea: I’m Andrea.
Elizabeth: And I'm Elizabeth.
Andrea: Join us as we chat about sci-fi and fantasy books and beyond.
Elizabeth: Looking for a little escape from reality. So are we.
Andrea: Welcome to Galaxies and Goddesses.
Elizabeth: On this week's episode, we'll be discussing the Dispossessed by Ursula K Le Guin.
Andrea: We'll talk about some of the major themes presented in the book, and if we think the book is still relevant today.
Elizabeth: We'll also discuss a little bit about Ursula K Le Guin's legacy and how she influenced the genre of science fiction as a whole.
Andrea: Let's get started.
Andrea: So I thought we could start talking a little bit about the life and legacy of Ursula K Le Guin. I had only read one of her books before this, and that was The Left Hand of Darkness, and that won the Hugo Award in 1970. The Dispossessed also won the Hugo Award, but in 1975, so five years later, and she won multiple awards throughout her life.
Andrea: She was [a] quite prolific writer. There's just so much about her. I'm not quite sure where to start.
Elizabeth: Well, so you read the Left Hand of Darkness. When did you read it? Did you like it?
Andrea: I read it several years ago. It was the first book in science fiction where gender was a major theme and it pushed the conventional ideas of what gender was.
Andrea: So I really liked that it pushed the envelope and that was back in the seventies. And so I think it would be a little bit different if it were written today.
Elizabeth: The idea of gender has changed within the public conscience since 1970 for sure. And especially in the last, 10, 15 years.
Elizabeth: I actually haven't read any of her books before. This is my first book. There's so much to chew on really, it's also very philosophical and sometimes it can almost be like, too out there almost…
Elizabeth: Did you feel like the same way with The Left Hand of Darkness? Is that a sense you got with her as a writer?
Andrea: I think she just pushes the envelope and she's not afraid to go there. And so I appreciate that she writes what she wants to and she's not holding back.
Elizabeth: Totally.
Andrea: I think you get that in both books by her.
Andrea: Unfortunately she died in 2018 at her home in Portland at the age of 88.
Andrea: There's a group that was established in 2022, that awards the Ursula K Le Guin prize. It's an annual English language literary award presented in her honor, and that's awarded to an author for a single work of imaginative fiction. The award is meant to honor authors who can imagine real grounds for hope and see alternatives to how we live now.
Andrea: So even though she's not around anymore. Her legacy lives on and she contributed a lot to the realm of science fiction and fantasy.
Elizabeth: For sure.
Elizabeth: I mean, you were sort of implying the attitude towards these deep philosophical questions that are raised in The Dispossessed or The Left Hand of Darkness that this was from 50 years ago, 55 years ago. So our attitudes towards it now are different.
Elizabeth: It's interesting sort of like thought experiment to think about the kind of author that could be doing the same sort of thing with the same sort of like deep questions of our current modern day. And I suppose that's probably a lot of like what that award is for too, is to try to recognize those people that are trying to raise these big questions and tackle them in a speculative fiction kind of way.
Andrea: Right.
Andrea: One of the things I've heard about science fiction and fantasy as a reason why maybe some authors are drawn to the genre is because you get to build a world of your own. And so by making it something new, you're able to look at things in a new way and maybe make criticisms or make comparisons that may have offended people if it were used in a literal setting on Earth.
Andrea: But The Dispossessed takes place further out in the galaxy. You do hear about Terrans eventually towards the end of the book, which is what remains of
Elizabeth: People from Earth.
Andrea: Right. Right.
Elizabeth: So yeah, it's not really given a time in space. I also read a, a recent book, I think we talked about it on the book Bingo. The Parable of the Sower by Octavia e Butler, also, dystopian similar to the Dispossessed.
Elizabeth: But that took place in the actual years that we're currently living in. It's like 2024 to like 2027, I think.
Andrea: They have their own time. So they were talking about Insurrection Day, “commemorating the first great uprising in Neo Esseia and the Urrasti year 740”(233). So when they initially had the anarchist rise up that were the original settlers that came to Annares, that was in the year 740.
Elizabeth: Right.
Andrea: And so presumably that's like 740 years after people came from Earth is how I interpreted that.
Elizabeth: Oh, interesting. Oh, I did not interpret it that way.
Andrea: Oh.
Elizabeth: I interpreted that as completely different races…
Andrea: Okay.
Elizabeth: Like they’re different creatures.
Andrea: They did talk about how like different aliens have different…
Elizabeth: Yeah.
Andrea: skin and hair and…
Elizabeth: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that. So like, they're actually a different type of creature from a different world.
Elizabeth: Right? Because then at the very end, he seeks refuge or asylum in the embassy of a different people.
Andrea: So there's the Hainish and then there's the Terrans and they're both considered
Elizabeth: The Hainish. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The Hainish.
Andrea: Yes. So The Left Hand of Darkness took place on the Hainish planet.
Elizabeth: Ohhh.
Andrea: So these books are all interrelated.
Elizabeth: Oh. Are the Hainish not human?
Andrea: They're not.
Elizabeth: Okay.
Andrea: They are similar, but they're like a different alien creature.
Elizabeth: They’re alien species?
Andrea: Yes.
Elizabeth: So I did not take that as the people who live on Urras and Annares are human.
Andrea: Okay.
Elizabeth: They could be
Elizabeth: Because I don't think it ever said anything about Terrans leaving and, or did I miss that?
Andrea: At the very end, they talked about how Terrans all had to leave Earth because it was destroyed, basically. Like that Earth had become habitable if you had to live there. But it was not a fun place to be.
Elizabeth: And there are still people living there.
Andrea: yes.
Elizabeth: Because that would've required settlers essentially from Earth to then settle Urras at some point.
Andrea: Right. Which is what I thought had happened, but maybe that's not the case. That's just kind of how I…
Elizabeth: oh. wait.
Andrea: imagined it, but there was nothing that said that explicitly,
Elizabeth: Yeah. Okay. Alright.
Andrea: I guess I should clarify. That was my mind making those connections. But that was not ever said explicitly in the book,
Elizabeth: Okay, cool.
Andrea: Yeah.
Elizabeth: Maybe, you know, it doesn't explicitly say that that's not the case.
Andrea: True. Maybe it says it's explicitly in some of her other books.
Andrea: Maybe you just have to read more.
Elizabeth: Yeah.
Elizabeth: So many of these deep themes in the book, it's a denser read than it looks like.
Andrea: It makes you think, for sure. It felt like I was back in school.
Elizabeth: And you have to write a report.
Andrea: Yes. That I need to write a report afterwards. Yes.
Elizabeth: Totally.
Andrea: As in most reports, maybe we should talk about the setting of the book. We haven't quite outlined that yet, for our listeners,
Elizabeth: Well I guess we sort of talked about it a bit where we're trying to clarify where all these species are in like worlds are coming from or going to in space and time in history.
Andrea: Yes.
Elizabeth: So the way it's set up, every other chapter it bounced back and forth between two timeframes. It wasn't entirely in medias res, right? Where you like start in the middle of the story, like the climax…
Elizabeth: then you go back in time and then work your way forward. Back to that moment in time, it didn't quite do that. It was like every other chapter.
Elizabeth: It bounced back and forth between the current time, the current action and
Elizabeth: the main character's life. And then by the end, the main character's earlier life had caught up to the present time.
Elizabeth: Patchwork in medias res.
Andrea: Another way of looking at that though is it takes place on two planets, right? An Anarres, the barren Moon, or the anarch separated and founded their own society breaking away from the planet Urras which is more earth-like with a very capitalist, patriarchal society.
Andrea: And the book starts the beginning of both of these timelines with one, when the main character Shevek is born on Anarres and the other, when he first goes to Urras. So they're both sort of a beginning,
Elizabeth: Yeah.
Andrea: Right. It’s like the beginning of his life and the beginning of his journey to the other planet.
Elizabeth: The story of the book.
Andrea: Yes.
Elizabeth: That there was this revolution on Urras and these settlers moved to the planet. And then he's the first person after that whole settlement.
Elizabeth: It wasn't as if people continued to come to Anarres. It was as if a large group of people moved all at once and then no one ever left. There's this trade system back and forth between Urras and Anarres, so that's the only time where outsiders from this original group of settlers are able to land on Anarres.
Andrea: Right,
Elizabeth: And so then he's the very first person to leave Anarres
Andrea: But you're not sure if he's gonna make it back to Anarres. I don't wanna give that away. ' You dunno until the very end.
Elizabeth: yeah.
Andrea: That's one we won't spoil.
Elizabeth: Yeah, let’s not spoil that.
Elizabeth: So the title right, the word dispossessed, I don't know that's ever actually used, but it's this of idea that the people left this capitalist society to settle this moon without any possessions. So they would be the dispossessed. It gets into this idea of capitalism and value systems and the culture around that.
Elizabeth: These deep questions that are a lot to chew on as you're reading it.
Andrea: Right. Well, and I thought it was interesting that the main character, Shevek, that he's a physicist. And the idea that he alone is one person that they want him to visit because he could teach them something and they're hoping to get something out of him, right?
Andrea: The capitalist society only wants him to visit because they think they can get something out of him, whereas he's looking to go there and share the gift of his knowledge.
Elizabeth: Totally. He's there to tear walls
Andrea: Yes.
Andrea: Tear walls down and he feels like he can't get anywhere at his current job or position because his ideas are somewhat revolutionary. So he is like, well, maybe I can go share my ideas somewhere else. But he wants to give them, and they want to take it. So,
Elizabeth: He wants to like, sort of show them the benefit and the value of this society that they've built on Anarres, on the moon, and sort of spread that word.
Elizabeth: What is his theory called?
Andrea: Simultaneity, I think.
Elizabeth: simultaneity, his theory of simultaneity.
Andrea: right.
Elizabeth: it's supposed to be this revolutionary idea.
Elizabeth: Why did Urras allow him to come to Urras. And maybe there's this profound level of curiosity about one of these revolutionaries.
Elizabeth: It sounds like there are sort of messages sent back and forth over that 170 or one eighty, a hundred eighty years, or however long it is again, they are in communication, but mostly, very separate.
Andrea: Most of the communication seems to be through letters, and that's one of the things I think would be different if it were written today. It's like, oh, you didn't have email. You didn't have email.
Elizabeth: Oh my god. Wait, wait, wait. Okay. So I, I marked 10 pages The first one was actually about letters.
Elizabeth: Okay.
Elizabeth: “Personal communication at long distance is costly in materials and labor. And since the private and the public economy was the same, there was considerable feeling against unnecessary writing or calling”(251)
Elizabeth: So like, communication when it's not necessary is trivial. And so it's does not have value in a world without possessions, so you shouldn't do it. I guess. "It was a trivial habit; it smacked of privatism, of egoizing.”(251) There was a lot of that word egoizing.
Andrea: Yes,
Elizabeth: “This is probably why the letters went unsealed. You had no right to ask people to carry a message that they couldn't read”(251).
Elizabeth: So I love sending postcards. Andrea can attest to that. I don't know how many postcards I've sent you, but I have sent many.
Andrea: It's great. I love getting your postcards.
Elizabeth: I love sending postcards. I also love receiving postcards. And I always wonder if the postal worker can actually read my postcard. So I will actually sometimes try to intentionally write things that are just funny. If anyone was reading it, would chuckle at it, then in hopes that maybe I could brighten the poster workers' day. But yeah.
Elizabeth: How wild is that? You had no right to ask people to carry a message that they couldn't read. There are no possessions. Everything is public property.
Andrea: There is no privacy. Well, and that goes into how they shared living spaces too. Nobody had a private house or property. It was all this communal living space and dormitories for children…
Elizabeth: Yeah.
Andrea: Shared bunk rooms for adults.
Elizabeth: There's the group of people that make the food for everyone. You don't make your own food. Yeah. Wow.
Andrea: What I noted on the page before that, on 250 was where it talked about names. Somebody asked, oh, have you had your name issued yet? Right.
Elizabeth: Oh yeah.
Andrea: Because they have their names assigned to them from a computer,
Elizabeth: And there are only five or six letters.
Andrea: Yes.
Elizabeth: That's it. One name, you are assigned your own single unique name. No two people have the same name. It's like a computer-generated slew of five or six letters. Wild. You don’t even own your own name.
Andrea: Right, so I'm just gonna read this paragraph here that kind of summarizes that idea of the names being issued, but then also brings up something that might sound familiar to something we actually do practice in the United States.
Andrea: So, "the five and six letter names issued by the Central Registry computer being unique to each living individual took the place of the numbers, which a computer using society must otherwise attach to its members”(251).
Andrea: And so I was like, oh yeah, I guess it is a little weird that we get assigned a social security number when we're born, and that number follows you your entire life and you have to memorize it and fill it out on forms and it's attached to your tax documentation.
Elizabeth: Everything
Andrea: Like what if that number were your name? But that's the thing is like you never want someone to find out your social security number because they could steal your identity if they were to do that.
Elizabeth: But they don’t have their own identity, is what you're sort of saying that like,
Elizabeth: as soon as you know their name, it’s the equivalent of that. Right? Because our social security number is a unique nine digit number assigned only to you. I guess the Social Security administration has not been probably around long enough for them to run out of nine digit numbers. But anyway, it's eventually it will.
Elizabeth: So then that unique to you that identifies you as an individual person within the system of the United States of America is a unique nine digit number.
Elizabeth: So in Anarres it's a unique string of either five or six letters. So as soon as you know someone, you know what their, unique identification is,
Andrea: Right.
Elizabeth: So there is no privacy or unique identification.
Andrea: When I read that, it made me think like I had never questioned having a social security number. I'd never thought of it as strange. I just accepted it.
Elizabeth: Yeah.
Andrea: And reading about this in a sci-fi book that's like, well that seems preposterous having a computer assign your name. But then the thing that follows up with that is like, oh, but we do get assigned numbers that follow us our entire lives.
Andrea: Like, is that so different?
Elizabeth: Yeah.
Andrea: It makes you think about it differently, I think.
Elizabeth: Except for you don’t introduce yourself as, hi, I am 7 1 3, 3 4, which are not my numbers, but you know, like yeah.
Andrea: There was so many things that made me think about how we live in our world, in a different way. Right? So that was one of 'em, their name being assigned by a computer, our social security numbers being assigned
Elizabeth: Mm-hmm.
Andrea: that we keep with us forever. And I never thought of that as being strange, but now I'm like, Hmm, maybe that is a little strange.
Andrea: I don't honestly know what they do in other countries.
Elizabeth: I do. I've done it before.
Andrea: Oh really?
Elizabeth: yeah, totally. In Ireland you get A-P-P-S-N number. So in order to work in Ireland and get paid and like pay your taxes and all that, you have to have a unique identification number. A-P-P-S-N number, is the personal public service number, and so that was one of the first things that I had to do when I arrived, before I could even start working, is that I had to Apply for A-P-P-S-N number because then in order for them to pay me and register me as an employee I had to have this number. So I think it had some letters in it too, actually.
Elizabeth: It wasn't maybe just a string of numbers, but anyway.
Elizabeth: I mean, it makes sense that if you're in a system, there has to be a way to identify you as a unique individual. And it is possible that people can have the same name. So I think it's probably common thing from country to country, that like you do have to have some sort of tax number.
Andrea: Right.
Andrea: So you said in Ireland it was A-P-P-S-N-A personal…
Elizabeth: Public service number.
Andrea: So public service and social security. Both are kind of these community ideas, you're paying into a system to benefit all
Andrea: Or you're receiving from a system.
Andrea: Right?
Elizabeth: Yeah.
Andrea: So, it is much more aligned with the Annares planet that's more socialist as opposed to the capitalist society where it's every man for himself. There's no handouts, no food given out to anybody
Elizabeth: True.
Andrea: Yeah.
Elizabeth: But we didn’t get enough of a view into the Urrasti way of governing. We don't know how they would do it. What sort of system exists that would be comparable to the five or six letter name, on Urras.
Elizabeth: But Oh my God. Fascinating though. Exactly, you're right. About how it makes you think about our world and how we function in our world.
Andrea: Because they're two extremes, right? The socialist planet versus the capitalist planet, they are just taken to the complete extremes.
Elizabeth: Totally.
Andrea: And in reality, neither is functional. And both of them have problems.
Elizabeth: Right.
Andrea: And it shows the problems in both of those societies.
Elizabeth: So, here is where there is the benefit, I would argue, the Urras system as opposed to the ANS system. So at one point he was in a store and he just bought a map. Yeah, a map and a postcard. And then something about tipping ...
Andrea: Oh, did money buy politeness?
Elizabeth: Yes.
Elizabeth: “Did the money buy the politeness as well as the postcards in the map? How polite would a shopkeeper have been if he had come in as an Anarresti came in to a goods depository: to take what he wanted, nod to the registrar, and walk out”(209) as in you don't have to pay anything.
Elizabeth: There's no money system, so then all the goods are just public goods. So you come into the shop and you just basically take what you need. And so then the shopkeep has no reason to be polite to you.
Andrea: Right. But I don't think they call it a, a keeper. Right. That sounds too propertarian.
Elizabeth: That is too propertarian. He did use the word shopkeeper though. Yeah. That has implied some amount of possession, doesn't it?
Elizabeth: So then this idea that when you're tipping somebody, then they're nice to you and they're polite , whereas in Anarres where they not tip anybody and they also don't like paying money for things.
Elizabeth: They just take the things that they need and then of course, you're expected to not take more than you need. You're supposed to only take enough to, manage your own survival needs I guess?
Andrea: Right.
Elizabeth: So then, yeah, he's asking the sort of philosophical question of when you're tipping, does that mean you're buying the politeness as well as whatever you're buying?
Elizabeth: Okay, so in my experience, yes.
Elizabeth: So I don't listen to a lot of podcasts. I will admit to the world out there. But I do enjoy listening to Freakonomics and there was an updated Freakonomics episode about tipping. I find tipping quite fascinating and tipping is kind of a hot button issue these days, right?
Elizabeth: 'cause we all agree that it's like getting outta control. And I've seen memes joking that like what would happen if you were in the hospital and the nurse walks up to you with an iPad and is like, leave your tip here. But yeah, so that's like how outrageous it's getting these days. Apparently Freakonomics did an old episode about tipping, but they did an updated episode because now with the introduction of tipping on Uber and mass scale data gathering on tipping habits from Uber is like fascinating.
Elizabeth: It was a really good episode of Freakonomics, I will say, if anybody's interested in tipping out there.
Elizabeth: But in my own experience, having lived in Europe a few different times, and then obviously being an American, there's a vastly different tipping culture between Europe and the United States. And so in Europe there are times where you're expected to tip, but you never tip as much as the United States. Whereas in the United States, obviously there's so much tipping and even more and more tipping and more and more like context. Anyway, so in the United States, if you go into a packed bar, right, like thinking about like a college bar that's like three people deep trying to get a drink at the bar, those bartenders are hustling.
Elizabeth: They are trying to sling as many drinks as they can because then every drink that they pour, they're getting a tip on. And so they're gonna try to do it as fast as they can. So that also means that you get better service, it happens faster and they're also trying to give good service to get more tips.
Elizabeth: Right? In Ireland, you do not tip at the bar. That's not a place where you tip the time where you're gonna tip usually for like hospitality is gonna be if you're going to a sit down dinner. And then it's like maybe 10%. So at a bar, if you're getting a drink, no, you're not tipping . So actually then I've been in busy bars in Ireland or busy pubs where the the pub keep the bartenders are not moving that fast. And it's like, frustrating. 'cause you're just like, come on man. I really want another drink right here. I've been waiting for a while. There are a lot of people waiting too.
Elizabeth: You know? And so it's like, okay, when you're tipping, the service is better, right? And when there's more of a tipping culture, the service is better. That doesn't mean the service is bad in Europe, it just means that it's slower. There's, you know, pros and cons to that too, but absolutely I saw that point and was like, oh, right, totally. In a society that does not have any possessions at all, you're not necessarily going to have every single thing that you need all the time. Right. If you're living in that kind of society you're gonna have to go to some sort of store at some point.
Andrea: Right.
Elizabeth: To get the things that you need. So the person who's at that store where you get those goods and services, but there's no incentive to be nice, and polite, and provide good service.
Andrea: That did come up at one point. The students when he's on Urras that are asking like, what motivates people if there's no money. And he's like, well, doing a good job. You know, people take pride in doing a good job. They wanna do the hard jobs and say, well, look how strong I am.
Elizabeth: Yeah.
Andrea: I think there's some truth to that. I think people take jobs that probably don't get compensated as well as they should because they enjoy it, like artists and musicians.
Elizabeth: Teachers.
Andrea: Teachers and people respect them for those jobs because they are hardworking and they don't get paid as much as they deserve in a lot of cases.
Elizabeth: No. Like vastly undervaluing so many different professions.
Andrea: But people still do the job. And I don't think it's purely financial. I think there's some pride in it and personal enjoyment.
Elizabeth: A sense of a calling to that
Andrea: Yes.
Elizabeth: For the value of the work, for the work itself.
Andrea: Mm-hmm.
Elizabeth: Yeah.
Andrea: Yeah.
Andrea: One of the things I always like talking about words that stood out to you.
Elizabeth: Ooh,
Elizabeth: “Propertarian" we've already used that one for sure.
Andrea: yes.
Elizabeth: And “egoizing”those definitely.
Andrea: Mm-hmm.
Elizabeth: Yeah. What stood out to you?
Andrea: Copulating! Oh my gosh. I don't think I've read the word copulating so many times in a book.
Elizabeth: Oh, really? Oh my God, I didn't even notice that word at all.
Andrea: Are you serious?
Elizabeth: Yeah.
Andrea: It's just very almost clinical, discussion about sex. It's not romantic whatsoever. And I felt like it was talked about a lot as just this activity that takes place and it was referred to as copulating I'd say 80% of the time.
Elizabeth: Wow.
Andrea: Yeah.
Elizabeth: 80% of the time you think, wow.
Andrea: I think so.
Elizabeth: So I guess you could say that by using the term copulating and making it so clinical like that, it is sort of referring to it as a function of the greater good to breed and have offspring and further the Anarresti race.
Andrea: But it wasn't even necessarily that. There was no shame around it.
Elizabeth: Yeah.
Andrea: I think that was another part of it too, is that they talked about how they didn't have any swear words because like the word hell
Andrea: It didn't translate to their language because they didn't have religion.
Andrea: So in the socialist society, there's no moral reason to say you’re going to go to hell. Like it didn't exist.
Elizabeth: Totally.
Elizabeth: Okay. Literally, the next page that I pull up, I immediately am pulled to the word copulate. Oh my God. That's funny actually.
Elizabeth: There were like two reasons that they gave for why they don't have a robust swear vocabulary and it was because they don't think of sex as shameful and they don't have any religion. Was that it?
Andrea: I think so.
Andrea: I've never read a book where they talked about so many of these big ideas: religion, sex, gender obviously capitalism and socialism.
Elizabeth: The structure of society and cultural aspects of what is value? How do we value things and structure our economy and our life around that ? And religion and politics and ecology, right? These two different worlds. Like the moon is dry and dusty and people's lung conditions because these dust storms versus Urras is lush did they maybe even call it paradise at somepoint ?
Andrea: yeah, it felt like paradise to them compared to the moon, which was just almost uninhabitable.
Elizabeth: Like a hellscape, yeah.
Andrea: Right. Yeah.
Andrea: One of the big things I went in wondering, as we picked this book for the podcast, I was like, is it still even going to be relevant today? And I think it is because they are such big picture issues.
Andrea: They are still relevant. Is still relevant today.
Elizabeth: Totally. And that's one thing I'm gonna have to say, know, it is a book about space travel, right? And I'm gonna say I have traveled a ton, and this is one of the reason why I love traveling, that it shows you a different perspective on life that makes you ask these big deep questions of like," what does it mean to live?" And "what should I do with my life?"
Elizabeth: What is the purpose of my life? What is the purpose of human life? What is the purpose of any life? How have we managed to live in our world the way we do and approach it in different ways? And yet often the same. As we answer these sort of big questions of survival.
Elizabeth: And so it definitely felt like a stranger in a strange land kind of tale that brings up these kinds of questions.
Andrea: I wouldn't recommend it to someone as just like, oh, a casual read.
Elizabeth: No.
Andrea: No, this is like, you gotta buckle up.
Elizabeth: It was not casual.
Andrea: Nope. It's a serious read, but I think a necessary one.
Andrea: Going back a little bit to some of the things that made me think about our world differently was how the women were so objectified…
Elizabeth: Definitely.
Andrea: on Urras and how they were not allowed to be in positions of power. They were basically just objects for the male gaze. And one of the things was that they shaved their heads.
Andrea: And that was considered beautiful. And I was like, it seems so weird to like shave your head because I'm so used to hair being associated with femininity. But then there's a social expectation or a social norm at least I think in the United States to shave your legs and underarms.
Elizabeth: For sure.
Andrea: But where does that come from? It's not natural.
Elizabeth: What I think is really interesting about that is that I think this is a thing that it's more a cultural norm amongst women. Like I don't think men really care.
Andrea: Hmm.
Elizabeth: I mean, I'm sure there are lots of men that like it and prefer it, but if women just collectively decided to stop shaving, I don't think the men would honestly really care.
Andrea: Well, and I know that I've seen women with a hairy underarms and I'm like, impressed. I'm like, if they could like pull that off, they have a lot of self-confidence.
Elizabeth: I feel like probably women shaving really took off. I'm guessing starting in the fifties, into the sixties, seventies, right. Like probably before that it didn't really happen.
Andrea: You know what probably keeps it being a social norm is the beauty industry and the capitalist side of it, of selling women beauty products.
Elizabeth: That you're either gonna charge you more…
Andrea: Yeah.
Elizabeth: for, 'cause it's pink, as opposed to if you just use men's razors, right? You're getting the pink tax and so they're charging more money for it. Absolutely. .
Andrea: There is a whole industry for laser hair removal as well to get it permanently removed.
Elizabeth: Totally. Going back to the like sort of overall historical movement of shaving. It was a very American thing, but not a very European thing for a long time, right? There was always this like stereotype of the O’naturale like French woman that like has hairy armpits.
Andrea: Yes.
Elizabeth: But what I have to say is has become more Americanized.
Andrea: but just the fact that like, it may be rethink that it is a little weird that we shave, but it's because we live in a somewhat capitalized society.
Elizabeth: It is weird.
Andrea: Yeah.
Elizabeth: Totally.
Andrea: It’s not natural and it would be just as normal to shave our entire head as it is to shave our, our legs.
Elizabeth: Like cultural attitudes towards your appearance.
Andrea: Yeah.
Elizabeth: Absolutely.
Elizabeth: Okay. Okay. Wait, wait, wait. Go back to the beginning of our current topic. You started it by saying how surprised you were to see women objectified on Urras.
Elizabeth: As you started to say that about women being objectified, I was like, oh, I have a good example of that on Anarres.
Andrea: oh,
Elizabeth: Talking about tech breastfeeding. Their daughter Sadie. She's speaking here, “I nursed her till she was three. Of course. Why not? When there was nothing good to wean her to, but they disapproved at the research station at Rolny. They wanted me to put her in the nursery there full time. They said I was being propertarian about the child and not contributing full strength to the social effort in the crisis.”
Elizabeth: So as in by continuing to breastfeed her daughter…
Elizabeth: she was taking energy away from the greater good to give it towards her daughter.
Andrea: Yes.
Elizabeth: So that kind of objectified her, right?
Andrea: As a worker, instead of a mother.
Elizabeth: Right, as like your ability to produce needs to always be towards the greater good and not towards yourself or your family.
Elizabeth: So at some point there is this threshold where now the baby can exist without breast milk, and anything beyond that is now propertarian because you are contributing that energy to your child, because presumably at that point they would also be receiving food from the commissary or from the general wherever people go to eat. So they're already taking that food. And in addition, they're also taking the energy that you as a mother can give to your child instead of giving that energy to the greater good.
Andrea: Yeah, the rest of society.
Elizabeth: Yeah, you're seen as boiling a human life down to what you can produce like that production.
Andrea: Like a statistic.
Elizabeth: Yeah.
Andrea: Like you're just a cog in a machine. And, and he said something about like, well, what makes us different from pieces of a machine if we don't have will to do something other? Right. Shevek says that at one point.
Andrea: At one point, he talks about what distinguishes this social organism from a machine if they don't have the free will to leave and do something different, if they're always just…
Elizabeth: Part of the machine.
Andrea: Told what to do as part of the machine, then that's the same type of authoritarian regime that they tried to leave behind. Yeah.
Elizabeth: Ooh.
Andrea: That over time they just end up becoming what they tried to get away from.
Elizabeth: Yeah.
Elizabeth: Yeah. Hmm.
Elizabeth: Whoa.
Andrea: Yeah. And then there's the whole thing about how over time there's a tendency for things to become more regimented and authoritarian because people like having that power. And even though there's no official hierarchy, there becomes this natural hierarchy by people putting up roadblocks
Elizabeth: Absolutely.
Andrea: To scientific inquiry or where people get sent for work or breaking up partnerships. It was all really interesting. It's just so much, so much.
Elizabeth: Oh man. So deep.
Andrea: Oh, oh, well, when it does make you think about all these big concepts, marriage, religion motherhood, like capitalist society, all these big topics, it doesn't give you an answer. It doesn't tell you what it should be.
Elizabeth: No. I suppose like those are sort of the big questions. That Shevek is wrestling within himself, I guess, but no one else is allowed to wrestle with these big questions.
Andrea: Mm-hmm.
Elizabeth: 'Cause it does sort of take that perspective of getting out of whatever system you are currently in and seeing a different system to then bring up these questions of what does it mean to live? And these big questions and how each society approaches those big questions. Because if you just in it and you never see anything to compare it to, then you don't question it. Exactly like you’re talking about …
Andrea: Right.
Elizabeth: Like with a social security number and you have never lived in another country.
Andrea: Correct.
Elizabeth: Yeah. And so to like go through the process of living and working in a different country that can raise more of those questions, right.
Andrea: So we've said, yes, this book still feels relevant today.
Elizabeth: Totally, oh my gosh.
Andrea: But did it remind you, or like feel similar to any books that you've read?
Elizabeth: Dune by Frank Herbert.
Andrea: I read the first book, Dune, but I have not read the whole Dune series.
Andrea: What about Dune reminded you?
Elizabeth: The copy of Dune that I read, there's an afterward by Brian Herbert, Frank Herbert's son, he is also an author and he wrote some of the books in the Dune series, some of the later ones. He talks about how there are so many layers to it that you can approach the book from so many different aspects.
Elizabeth: You can read the book and just focus on the ecology of these planets, or you can read it and just focus on the politics or you can just focus on the religion. What, I guess maybe it reminded me most of is the level of world building that
Andrea: Hmm.
Elizabeth: if you can succeed in building this world that is so robust and complex and nuanced. When it manages to address so many different aspects of
Andrea: Big topics or make you think about big topics in a new way.
Elizabeth: Yeah.
Elizabeth: Mm-hmm.
Andrea: Well, I didn't have a book that this reminded me of, but I kept thinking about a specific place. I wonder if you'll guess what place I kept thinking of,
Andrea: Arcosanti
Elizabeth: Oh yeah, totally.
Andrea: It's not a book, but I couldn't help but keep thinking about ti The people who live on an Anarres are called the Anarresti, it's like how I kept the two planets separate in my mind it's like Anarresti was kind of like Arcosanti and it's more of the socialist leaning communal society in the dusty moon planet.
Elizabeth: Like the moonscape of Arizona.
Andrea: Yes.
Elizabeth: North, Central Arizona.
Andrea: Central Arizona. Yeah.
Andrea: So yeah, Arcosanti is about an hour north of Phoenix. And Arcosanti was built starting in 1970 when they started construction in the middle of the desert. So I was wondering if there was any overlap and I actually reached out to the archives at Arcosanti to see if Paolo Soleri or Arcosanti had any connection with Ursula Le Guin and they said they didn't have anything on record.
Elizabeth: Oh,
Andrea: And so there's no official connection and you know, as all books do, it does say at the beginning of the book that there's no connection to any real place. That all places incidents are products of the author's imagination or used fictitiously and not meant to be construed as real.
Elizabeth: Are you reading off the publication page?
Andrea: Yeah.
Elizabeth: Oooh! You know I honestly thought about that particular phrase on the publication page.
Elizabeth: I love reading publication pages because you can learn some of the most fascinating things about books sometimes. and so when I'm reading a book, I will read every single word that is printed on the page or the cover. I read every single thing that's there. And sometimes on publication pages, there's a lot of like kind of legalese. There’s these, words or phrases that are always used and it can be different based upon where the book is published or printed.
Elizabeth: So if it's published in the UK it'll say different things in the UK than it will in the United States. So as you're saying that, this is a work of fiction names, characters, places and instance or products of the US as imagination, blah, blah, blah.
Elizabeth: Right? That's a thing that is specific to books , that are published in the United States.
Andrea: Yes, it specifically says, "This is a work of fiction names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author's imagination, or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons living or dead is entirely coincidental."
Elizabeth: Entirely coincidental, which that is false and we all know it. When people are writing things in fiction, they're absolutely basing things on people that they know. And it is not entirely coincidental. It's funny. I never thought about that actually, but that is false and we all know it.
Elizabeth: Okay, so here, I just pulled a book off my shelf that was printed in the UK.
Elizabeth: I don't quite understand this. And if anybody out there could ever explain this to me, like a, a solicitor from the uk, if you could respond to this, the UK or Ireland or any other country like Australia, Commonwealth countries that use the British legal system, if someone can ever explain this to me, I'd love that. the book in my hand is the book called, Troubles by JG Farrell. It won the Booker Prize in like 1970. Anyway it's fantastic. On the publication page, it says " The moral right". That's my question is what is a moral right? "The moral right of JG Farrell to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the copyright designs and patents acts of 1988."
Andrea: Wow.
Elizabeth: Why do you have to assert your moral right to be identified as the author of the work? What is a moral right and why do you have to assert that, right?
Andrea: So you didn't steal the manuscript from someone else? The author didn't like take somebody else's work and put his name on it.
Elizabeth: Plagiarize it I guess?
Andrea: That’s what it makes me think of. Yeah.
Elizabeth: I guess that could…
Andrea: Yes.
Elizabeth: be in accordance with the Copyright Designs and Patents Act in 1988. I don't know.
Andrea: Great question for a lawyer or a solicitor.
Elizabeth: What would be a question for solicitor? If someday I found myself speaking to a solicitor in the UK. Anyway.
Elizabeth: Oh yeah. Going back to this thing about why I love reading publication pages in the best example is from the publication page of 50 Shades of Gray EL James.
Andrea: So your favorite publication page, this is Elizabeth's favorite publication page.
Elizabeth: Actually I got a top two. I'm gonna have to, yeah. I can give you my top two favorite publication pages. But I think probably the first one that got me really excited about reading publication pages is out of the publication page from 50 Shades of Gray by EL James. Oh my God. Here's, here's what, it's so good. The author published an earlier serialized version of this story online with different characters as quote “Master of the Universe” end quote, under the pseudonym Snow Queen's Ice Dragon. Like possessive Snow Queen's Ice Dragon.
Andrea: I have to admit, I have not read 50 Shades of Gray.
Elizabeth: Anyway, if you want, just read the publication page. If you see it someday, just look at the publication page and be like, oh, she was right. Oh my God, Snow Queen’s Ice Dragon. I don't even remember it as possessive. I just remember the Snow Queen Ice Dragon part, but it's Snow Queen apostrophe “s” Ice Dragon.
Elizabeth: So my second favorite is the publication page from The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet by Reif Larsen. It was published in copyright 2009.
Elizabeth: So one thing I really like, but it's not in every book and I feel like it happens less and less anymore, which makes me sad. It seems like I see it less in maybe newer books. It still happens more often in nonfiction books when they'll put down towards the bottom like subjects.
Andrea: Mm, yes.
Elizabeth: What's really cool about The Selected Works of TS Spivet is that it's got a bunch of drawings in it. The body of the book , the prose is set like it normally is, but then in the margins all around it, it's got what look to be handwritten, little doodles and cartoons and notes on the subject matter, you know, like footnotes and also side notes and these little arrows, sometimes the arrows go from like one page to the next.
Elizabeth: It's a great book. I have to say to all the people out there, it's not sci-fi or fantasy. It is just a cute little fiction story about this character, TS Spivet, who is from Divide Montana, which is on the continental divide, south of Butte, Montana.
Elizabeth: And he is probably on the autism spectrum, I think, if I remember. he's like a teenager, a middle schooler . And so then something about it, if I remember correctly, that the story is that he's going to Washington DC to like help give a presentation on his topic of expertise.
Elizabeth: The publication page is great. There’s way more on this publication page than probably any other publication page, there's this hand drawn arrow to the side that says, and then in his handwriting.
Elizabeth: This book is about number one child cartographers dash Montana. Number two, voyages and travels fiction. And then the arrow continues all the way across the center of the page to the other side of the page and then down the page and then like around again, and then it goes.
Elizabeth: But also, number three, divides fiction. Number four, sparrows fiction. Number five, Beatles, tiger Monk, Beatles fiction number six. Girls. who like pop music fiction. it is really cute. It is such a heartwarming, cute little book. But anyway,
Elizabeth: It's quite a conversation about publication pages, man. Anywho.
Andrea: Back to The Dispossessed. What would you rate this, Elizabeth?
Elizabeth: So I was gonna give this book a four. And that's because I felt like it was, it was hard to read at times, right?
Elizabeth: That I guess it depends upon your mood at the time. And as you approach the book and what's going on in your life at the time, that, sometimes you just wanna sit down and just not really have to think about it and just read and just enjoy the story.
Elizabeth: Right? And this some legwork and so it didn't read as swiftly and easily as I thought I was going to. It gets a little dense, but now I have to say, after our conversation, I am now gonna give it a 4.5. 'cause I still think there are parts about it that are a bit dense. I wouldn't give it a five star review because if I were to recommend it to somebody, I would say it can be a bit dense to just like be mentally prepared for that. Whereas if I didn't have to say that to somebody, I think I would give it five stars, so I'll give it four and a half.
Andrea: I agree with you completely on this. I think I was also gonna give this a four, but just even talking about it again because it tries to, it doesn't try to, it, it does talk about really big, important topics and makes you think about your own life and our own society that I think it's a really important book.
Andrea: And so even though it wasn't the most enjoyable, I think it's like a 4.5. When I rated it on my own apps, I gave it like a four. I think I gave it like a 4.25 somewhere, but I think it's like a good 4.5. I wouldn't give it a five because I don't think I'd reread this again.
Andrea: It's too much to reread. It's too dense. Yeah. Yeah.
Elizabeth: I 100% would rather spend my time reading more by Ursula K Le Guin. Whereas like thinking about books that I would give five stars, I would definitely reread those again. You know, like Dune, like I give Dune five stars a hundred percent.
Elizabeth: I look forward to the day when I’m reread it.
Andrea: You would reread it. Right. That's kind of one of the factors that comes into whether I give something a five star read or not, but I feel like it's an important book. I'm glad I read it. And I think it holds up over time.
Elizabeth: Definitely.
Andrea: I have not met many people that have read it. And so I wouldn't lightly recommend it, that's the thing, right? It's highly rated 'cause it's important, it's thought provoking, but it has some uncomfortable points in the book for sure, too.
Andrea: There's some, some trigger warning yeah.
Elizabeth: And I feel like if I’m going to give something five stars, it's going to be an unconditional recommendation as in like, no matter who you are, I'm gonna tell you to read this book.
Andrea: mm-hmm.
Elizabeth: I would never tell my mom to read this book.
Elizabeth: Whereas like, I would 100% recommend Dune to my mom.
Elizabeth: There are certain books that people who aren’t into sci-fi and fantasy that they would still really like.
Andrea: I've also read Dune and between the two, Dune is a more fun read. You get more invested in the characters. Here you're reading, but the characters are like just the vehicle to explore the ideas. You're not really rooting for the character. It's just a tool…
Elizabeth: mm-hmm.
Andrea: Rather than someone you care about.
Andrea: I don't feel like I ever connected with the character.
Elizabeth: I definitely would give some books a four star review and may not ever really think about it a whole lot ever again.
Andrea: Mm-hmm.
Elizabeth: But I get the sense with this book that it's gonna maybe stick with me. Like, I think there could be aspects of it that I don't even realize are gonna, occur to me at times into the future As I finished it, it was a four, but I think it's one of those books that I'm still gonna give it a 4.5. 'cause I do anticipate that it's going to be a book like that, that kind of sticks with me.
Elizabeth: So unfortunately that concludes this week's episode. We've reached the end of another cosmic journey on Galaxies and Goddesses.
Andrea: Don't worry. The adventure never really ends. There are always more stories to explore. And let's be honest, more bookish tangents for us to go on.
Elizabeth: But hey, that’s part of the fun. If you loved today's episode, make sure to subscribe. Leave a review and share the magic.
Andrea: Stay tuned for our next episode where we'll be gearing up for spooky season.
Elizabeth: And in the meantime, keep your mind fueled by the magic of stories.
Andrea: And never stop chasing the worlds waiting for you between the pages. Thanks everyone!